Did you ever feel like your team is committing the same mistakes over and over? You feel that they are not moving in the right direction and you need to drive in some change to make the project development process productive.
Whether you are new to software development or you have been working in the software industry for years, you must have come across the term ‘Sprint Retrospective’. Agile development teams have made retrospective meetings quite popular.
Regardless of how good a Scrum team is, there is always some room for improvement. Since the focus of agile development is continuous improvement, a good project team sets aside a brief period at the end of each Sprint to reflect how they are doing and seeks out new ways to improve. This is called a Sprint Retrospective.
What is a Sprint Retrospective?
The term retrospective implies looking back or dealing with past events and situations.
According to the Scrum Guide, developed and sustained by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland “ the Sprint Retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint.”
Well, if you do not know what a Sprint is, a Sprint essentially is a time-boxed period during which a set amount of work is to be completed by the Scrum team. It is at the very heart of Scrum and agile methodologies.
The purpose of a Sprint Retrospective is to identify potential pitfalls and mistakes, evaluate the past working cycle and define actions that may improve things.
It is like a safe space for people to share honest feedback. It is an opportunity to focus on inspection and adaptation. ‘Inspect’ and ‘adapt are the twin mottos of a retrospective and they play a crucial role in making the next Sprint more productive.
Sprint retrospective plays a fundamental role in the scrum framework in agile development. During the sprint retrospective, a team discusses, what went well in the Sprint, what all can be improved and what actions shall be undertaken to improve the next Sprint.
The Value of a Sprint Retrospective
Everything that has an effect on how the Scrum team builds a product such as the practices, processes, tools and communication are open to survey and the retrospective is attended by the product owner, scrum master, development team, and optionally the stakeholders.
Based on the discussions in a retrospective, the team members execute changes and then proceed to the coming sprint with an incrementally improved process.
The best thing about a retrospective is that it happens at the very last when the sprint ends. This way fresh ideas are churned out and teased out by the whole team in the next Sprint.
Afterall, the real purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to bring about a positive change in the project, team, and organization.
What a project team plans to accomplish with a Retrospective is pretty much similar to what a football team plans to accomplish in its Monday morning tape review of the weekend’s game. The review is to evaluate how they could have defended better.
Same is the case with a retrospective, it particularly isn’t about winning the game but altering the strategy and implementations to win the next game.
Afterall, even with the best of teams, there’s always some room for improvement.
While a sprint retrospective is essentially an optimised process for teams working in an agile environment, it can be optimised for any type of team that works on a shared project.
During each Sprint Retrospective, the Scrum Team devises ways to improve product design & development quality by improving work processes or adapting the definition of “Done” if it is not in conflict with the product or organizational standards.
Why should you run a Sprint Retrospective?
More often than not, crucial ceremonies in agile such as the retrospective appear very mundane to project teams and as a result they do not use it to their full advantage.
There are a raft of benefits of running an agile sprint retrospective:
It creates a safe space for team members to share valuable insights and feedback. Retrospectives foster active participation, allow sharing of views and interests, and encourages the team to collaboratively arrive at a solution.
It provides a platform to document wins, celebrate success and inturn strengthens the team spirit.
The primary importance of a Sprint Retrospective is that it allows the team to identify potential pitfalls at an early stage and resolve conflict areas. With retrospectives, agile teams can continuously improve the processes by evaluating ‘what all can be improved’.
By running a retrospective, teams can easily identify small, incremental changes that can cast a huge impact on the overall product. When members share their views for improvement, they feel a sense of ownership.
Not only team members feel that their opinions are heard and respected, it also cuts through hierarchy and gives equal power to all team members.
There are many benefits of retrospectives but it is of utmost help to Project Managers. Retrospective aligns teams, keep the project on the right track and make each sprint better than the last. The end of the retrospective allows teams to commence the next sprint with a clean slate.
Difference between a Sprint Retrospective and a Sprint Review
Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective are often confused as the same thing. However, they are completely different.
Sprint Review
The idea behind working in Sprints is to produce a potentially shippable product increment.
Sprint Review is a meeting where a project team demonstrates the work that they have accomplished. During a Sprint Review meeting, the Scrum Team presents the deliverables of the current Sprint to the Product Owner. The Product Owner then reviews the product increment against the Acceptance Criteria and either accepts or rejects the User Stories.
Sprint Retrospective
In a Sprint Retrospective Meeting, the last Sprint is analysed in terms of the process followed, the tools employed, collaboration and communication mechanisms, and other aspects relevant to the subject.
The team discusses what went well in the previous Sprint, what did not go so well, with the sole aim to make improvements in the next Sprint.
Simply put, the Sprint Review focuses on the product and maximizes the business value of the previous sprints while the Sprint Retrospective focuses on the process and continuous process improvement.
The Sprint Retrospective takes place after the Sprint Review and before the next Sprint Planning. Mostly, it is a three-hour meeting for one-month Sprints.
The Scrum Master ensures that the event is conducted and the attendees understand its very purpose. Since it is an opportunity for the Scrum team to improve, ideally every participant should be present in a Retrospective.
Sprint Retrospective Process
Sprint retrospective is considered one of the most indispensable meetings in Scrum. A well done agile retrospective offers a number of benefits. Here are the five essential steps and tips to make the sprint retrospective better:
The very first step is to set the stage. Setting the environment, the tone and direction for retrospective is how you start off on the right foot.
The next step is to gather and analyze the data of previous projects to have insights into previously performed actions. It also entails creating a shared pool of information and highlighting pertinent information and events.
The third step is to identify repeated patterns and generate insights. By looking at patterns and themes, and identifying pain points and successes it becomes relatively easy to improve the process for everyone in the next Sprint.
The next stage is deciding a few issues to work on and creating concrete action plans on how to address them.
The retrospective ends with the acknowledgement and appreciation for the contribution of each member.
Conclusion
The Sprint Retrospective is a critical part of our scrum agile methodology. By running a retrospective we practice the Agile “inspect and adapt” principle.
Retrospective is a great opportunity to motivate a team by providing them the opportunity to speak up, share their ideas, and be heard.
The end goal of our Sprint retrospective meetings is to continually improve a development project, sprint by sprint. It not only improves the quality of the approach, but significantly improves the quality of the product.
Did you ever feel like your organization is working in silos? Designers want to deliver meaningful experiences, the Marketing team is keen on entering a new vertical while sales are focussed on bringing in more and more leads, but all of this happens in isolation. Even though the roles of each of these departments are varying in nature, their priorities and end goals must be clear and consistent. Otherwise, it’s a sheer wastage of the business’s resources spent across different directions. Cross-functional teams foster cohesion within the company, reduce wastage of valuable resources and enable you to maximize your efforts in order to accomplish goals faster.
More often than not, the underlying reason why companies struggle with building better digital products is how they prioritize milestones and the linear approach, where work is passed from one team to another without fully channeling the skill and expertise of each discipline.
Building a digital product requires a team effort. Each discipline has a role to play and sometimes, these roles are overlapping. A great idea can come from any person and any team. Organizations looking to grow with agility and speed need to build cross-functional teams and bring them to the center stage. When the skill of each discipline is valued, their perspective is heard and every discipline is represented at the table, it results in quality solutions.
So, What is a Cross-functional Team, anyway?
A Cross-functional team brings people together from different functional expertise. By mutually exploring the prospects of a project and through shared expertise the team accomplishes a common goal.
There are so many crucial roles in digital product design and development– Designers, Product Managers, Business Analysts, Engineers, Quality Analysts, Marketing Specialists, and the list goes on.
The approach behind a cross-functional team is to gather a good mix of people from various disciplines to work on a project together. It is about brainstorming ideas, uncovering different and unique perspectives, and channeling an umbrella of expertise towards achieving one common goal – how to build a unique digital solution.
The idea behind cross-functional teams stems from agile methodology. Every discipline deserves a seat at the table regardless that their department’s primary phase is underway.
What’s the need for a Cross-functional Team?
When teams collaborate together in every phase and stage of creating a digital product, the result is impactful. In a cross-functional team, each person understands the role of other team members and views the product not only from the perspective of his/ her field but as an entire product and as a team effort.
Having a Cross-functional team is extremely crucial because every person brings so much value to the table. When a diverse set of people come together, a problem is approached in all possible ways and we are able to uncover unique perspectives.
For instance, when an Engineer has a seat at the table right when the project kicks off, identifying the best technology to build a product becomes easy. While others in the team may not be technically adept, an Engineer brings a different level of technical understanding to the front, especially when they have worked with cutting-edge technologies in the past.
As a full-cycle app development company, we believe in agile development with cross-functional teams. By building cross-functional teams, we were not only able to reduce the cycle time in new product development, but our teams also demonstrated flexibility in adapting to changing market needs and were able to develop innovative solutions at a faster pace.
While the number of Designers involved in a project will be more in the Design phase and the number of Engineers will rapidly increase in the Development phase, having representatives from each discipline throughout the app development process regardless of the phase adds a lot of value to the product.
The approach behind a cross-functional team resonates quite well with the practices of DevOps.
DevOpscan be seen as a cultural perspective on how teams should be engaged in working the right way.
In today’s fast-paced world, with more advanced projects coming up, the need to move faster and be agile is ever-growing. DevOps addresses this concern – it makes development, operations, and other groups within an organization come together, collaborate closely on shared goals, and deliver software faster and more reliably.
Just like DevOps emphasizes close collaboration between software development and operations, having a cross-functional team for the entire product-development process improves collaboration across disciplines like Strategy, Design, Development, Testing and results in quality outcomes.
Benefits of Cross-functional Teams in Digital Product Development
The advantages of a cross-functional team in digital product development are manifold.
When all disciplines collaborate closely and everyone is invested in maximizing their contributions towards the project, it results in the best product possible.
1. Knowledge Sharing
The key idea behind accomplishing goals through interdisciplinary work is the exceptional variety of talent figuring out how to create something that is meaningful and brings value to end-users.
Confronting new perspectives, learning from others, and looking at things holistically impact the quality of solution and results in a robust product.
2. Alignment on Goals
In a cross-functional team, people look beyond their roles and responsibilities and are focused on accomplishing the common goal. There is total alignment on set milestones and people collaborate together to achieve them in the best way possible.
3. Less Handovers
When you collaborate across disciplines and everyone is present throughout the product development lifecycle, it minimizes handovers and speeds up the processes.
4. Teamwork
Working together facilitates teamwork. It brings people closer and improves communication. It is easy to talk through the issues and brainstorm great ideas. Collaborating closely builds respect and trust in teammates.
5. Identifying issues
When a project is handled by a cross-functional team, everyone is up to date with the project’s progress. When people work at the same time and don’t focus solely on their disciplines, it is easy to identify bugs and flag issues that may trouble the user.
6. Iteration
As mentioned above, cross-functional teams are up to date with all the issues within a project, which implies, making changes to the design or the code becomes easy. Testing and iteration can be done at the same time and it saves a lot of time, effort, and money.
7. Positive customer experience
While there are many different roles in an organization, each of these functions exists to serve the customer. By encouraging effective communication across teams, it becomes easy to provide a meaningful tailored customer experience.
8. Increased Innovation
When a group of people from different functional expertise comes together to solve a common problem, it is relatively easy to generate creative and overall solutions.
Companies that use cross-functional teams include marketing perceptions, sales conversations, product usage data, and other relevant sources of information into keen consideration when making product decisions which result in smarter decision making. The power of cross-functional teams is to drive better decision-making through business-wide learning.
Challenges faced by Cross-functional Teams
Effective cross-functional team collaboration is the key to tackle an organization’s biggest problems. However, there are certain problems with cross-functional teams and sometimes they can be difficult to manage.
Conflicting Goals
Each discipline comes with a set of roles and responsibilities. Oftentimes, when functional experts from different teams come together, they tend to give less priority to the project and are more focused on their own goals.
In such cases, it is essential for leaders to identify strategic goals to make sure there is clarity of purpose and the whole team is alined, on the goals of the team or the company.
Too much or too little Communication
With a cross-functional team, it is crucial to decide the right measure of communication. Too many unnecessary meetings lead to loss of time and can harm productivity while little communication regarding the project status and dulication can negatively impact a project.
Choosing Ideas
In a cross-functional team, you may give up on good ideas when others don’t like them.
While sometimes, it becomes easy to let go of complicated ideas and work more efficiently. This is where Discovery Workshop and operating in an agile manner comes into the picture. Scrum Methodology helps cross-functional teams encounter the biggest challenges and achieve great outcomes.
Leadership
In a self-organizing team with no clear leader, there is a possibility that the team may get lost and feel there is no clarity of purpose. It is essential to have a leader that can provide sufficient oversight so that small problems do not snowball into a bigger crisis and the team is able to collaborate efficiently.
Conclusion
Cross-functional teams often struggle because the organization lacks a structured approach. Teams are affected by insufficient oversight, conflicting goals, lack of accountability, and the organization’s failure to measure the impact of cross-functional collaboration.
Corporate structures are reorganizing themselves into cross-functional teams since the advantages are many. It may take time to adopt the cross-functional team approach to building products but it has nearly three times the success rates and is worth the rewards.
Mobile app industry is not new to businesses making an entrance on a semi-hourly basis, trying to gauge whether they fit in or not and all the way hoping to get a share of all the good things that the stores have to offer – Global Reach and Sky-High Revenue Chart.
But, mobile app industry is also not new to seeing new businesses come in trying their luck in the domain and leaving because of failed success.
For an app entrepreneur, there can be nothing worse than the time where after investing a very good amount of time and money all they get left with is an app that sees either low or very short lived success. And the sad truth is that it is a very common occurrence.
A huge challenge for any app based start-up entrepreneur is to search for the consistent and calm focus among the various highs and lows and finding the things to avoid after app launch. One minute they experience a great euphoria as they witness hundreds of installs instantly for they have employed all the factors that make apps successful, and the next second they feel despair that those were the only installs.
Developing a startup takes time. But ensuring that your startup isn’t the one that meets the same fate is something that you cannot leave on time. And knowing what problems faced by startups can definitely give you a head start, especially in devising post app launch strategies.
Let us give you the kick and beware you of all the challenges that your app entrepreneur can face after your app hits the market.
Challenges That Help Devise Post App Launch Strategies
1. Establishing Yourself in a Crowded Market
No matter how truly amazing your startup business idea is, there is a very minimal chance that they app idea you have is truly the one that the world has not seen or at least the mobile app market has not seen. In fact, chances are that if your startup business idea is actually the one that has never been seen before, it will be only a matter of time before the market gets crowded with it.
And for a startup working on a situation of low resources – manpower and funds – it can be one of those things to avoid after app launch an app that can keep you from establishing yourself in a crowded market place and not get lost in the crowd. The scariest part of it all is that the chance of you getting lost in the crowd are still prevalent even if follow the unwritten app ideation manifesto that the app should be developed only after understanding the users’ needs, the exact buyer persona, etc.
2. Getting a Team Together
Most often than not the team that you got associated with to develop your mobile app gets left behind once the project is complete and launched. So, once it all ends, the team that you have left is the one that you have to create.
Now, theoretically, it sounds much easier than done. In words, you have to employ the “right” people with the necessary experience to take your mobile app forward till the end of time. But, when you enter the practical grounds in a reality where what you have to offer to those “right” people is next to nothing, it all seems to fall apart. After all, if it was this easy, it would not have been one of the most thought of post app launch strategies.
Getting a team together – the most thought upon after mobile app launch strategy – that is in sync with your mobile app ideas and your vision of the business when in return all you have to offer to them is hardly anything bigger than a tag of experience is something that takes a toll on the longevity of any startup.
3. Scalability
One of the biggest mistakes that app entrepreneurs make is confusing scalability with growth. They believe that scalability, like growth is expanding the business, witnessing a time when the revenue inflows are on an all time high, etc.
When, in reality, there is a very thin but prominent line of difference between scalability and growth. While, in case of growth, you know you have to incur expenses in order to reach the next level, scalability, in its idea itself, means that you will have to work on growing your business while the expenses are kept very low and constant.
Now going by the mere definition of scalability, something that we must go through for it is one of the most important to be followed eventually tips after new app launch, there are some other issues that get stringed along. Issues like the timing of scalability and the scope of it. If you scale your business too soon or too late, you will face failure and if you scale at the right time in the wrong domain, you will face failure.
4. Marketing
The task revolving around finding an answer to how to market a startup app is not even half as glorious and a piece of cake as the many listicles on the various marketing platforms tell you.
There are A NUMBER of things you have to decide between – the right platform vs the cost effective platform – less expense vs wider reach – and the list of confusions and struggles goes on.
The answer to how to market an app successfully itself has been the cause of demise of a number of brilliant app ideas such as your in the market and it is not going to stop. In fact, the more the platforms coming up to expose your brand to the world, the greater are becoming your chances to get sidelined.
Spending to your company’s intent to create a presence in the market and not getting any results at the back of it can be very scary and the truth is, this scariness is what is keeping entrepreneurs awake every night.
5. Funding
No matter what fund scheme you have backing your mobile app project till now, chances are that once the other side of real expenses kicks in, the money would run out. In fact, half of your money would run out when looking for best app marketing strategies only. That and the fact that in the mobile industry, the new trend that we see shaping up is one where the applications that get funded are the ones that are most talked about and thus used, are together making it an utmost necessity to find investors and quick.
Now, getting investors, if anyone of you who must have tried is NOT EASY. There is always a company with a much investment wise unique idea knocking on the investor’s profile across platforms.
And then the less talked in the open issue of the investors being a little soft on established names backing an app idea. All in all, getting funded is not easy.
6. Frequent Market Changes
The tech market is on a continuous change trip. There’s no denying that. Everytime you think you are offering something truly unique, the next day industry moves on to the next big thing. Example, had you ever thought of an AR based game like Pokemon Go, which was once on everybody’s phone to get into a state where it is not even talked about anymore?
It happened though, right?
The tech market changes too much for our liking. And for you to think that you are offering something of value today and assuming that it would always remain in demand is nothing more than being naive.
The timeline of an app being IN in the market is reducing because of this very reason. There is hardly an app today that can promise survival in the market operating on the same business model.
7. Constant Update
Launching an app, as we all know, is never enough. There is always something that needs to be tweaked and removed and added. Having an app developed is that is why called a continuous process, because the work never really ends, making what to do after an app launch, an endless list
And, until and unless you are associated with an agency that is your app’s lifetime partner who helps you understand why to update your app and how, chances are that your app and its user base will ultimately succumb to non-existence because of the simple fact that it is never looked over from maintenance point of view.
Constantly maintaining your mobile app can be a very difficult and a lot more easily ignored than one would like it to be, solely because without a team, you would hardly know what is actually technically wrong with the app and thus the circle of complaining reviews would only keep growing bigger.
8. Distributed Focus
It is not new or even difficult for new app entrepreneurs to get deviated from the main app or the goal that they started the journey to achieve and why not after all, the time is too low to get stuck to one idea and keep at it, right?
While seem to be very well fitting to the idea of carpe diem, it can do more bad than good. When you lose your focus and start looking at other feature set or technology addition, even if it doesn’t quite fit with your application, you often experience an event of chaos sooner or later. You find yourself sitting with multiple projects that have been started but are not going anywhere.
Keeping a concentrated focus to at least bring it at a point of constant growth is a lot easier said than done.
Here were the mobile app startup challenges that are in so many ways the sure shot medium to your startup’s quick demise.
There comes a time in the life of every individual with an entrepreneur-streak when they think of an app idea they truly believe in. But if you are anything like the majority of those dreamers, chances are you are sharing their state as well – lack of funds to convert the mobile app startup idea into a digital product.
A ray of hope, however, for every app entrepreneur with restricted funds is to get investors’ interest. An optimistic misconception among the would-be-entrepreneurs is that investors will automatically invest in a great app idea. If only getting app funding was that simple.
What Are The Different Funding Options Available to Me?
FAQs on How to Find Funding For Your Mobile App Startup
How Much Funding Should I Raise?
Before you start making a list of prospective investors or binge-watching Shark Tank, decide the funding you actually need for your app. A miscalculation can be a double-edged sword. If you get less funding, it’d bring you back to the square one position post-funding and if you get more funds than planned, it can still be your loss.
The more funds you raise, the more you give away your company at the initial stage of the business. This can hamper your owner’s share and rights once your app becomes a brand. A good starting point of accurate estimation can be to know the average mobile app development cost.
When planning to raise initial capital for your app, you should ask yourself three questions to determine the funds you’d require:
How much money will I need to build my app?
How much money will I need to get traction?
How much will I need for post-launch services?
These questions will give you an estimate of how much effort you will have to put behind raising money for mobile app startup. Generally, the maximum amount goes into funding for mobile app development and the rest will go into the other two questions.
Even if you are partially funding your app from your savings or getting funded by family and friends, you should have an estimate of the fund needed. This will not only help you keep proper track of funds but also will help plan the app expansion.
Once you have estimated the funding you’d require, the next step is to get on the preparatory stage.
How Do I Prepare My App to Become a Fund-Magnet?
Solidify the app idea
Why would even one of the many mobile app investors fund your app if the idea isn’t validated or have the backing of a community need? This is the most asked question when getting funding for an app. To answer this accurately, even a seemingly profitable idea should work on the following factors:
Finding a problem that the app solves
A majority of the apps in the market don’t solve a real problem. Although it works great for gaming or video creation apps, the chances of them getting overshadowed are massive. Unless and until your app is solving a problem that no one has even thought about, it’s going to be tough to sustain.
Build an MVP.
The next part of solidifying an app idea is to build an MVP. A Minimum Viable Product will ensure that your idea actually works and solves the real problem. It is an app version built with key features with an intent to help you raise money. The added benefit of the MVP is that it can gather you constructive feedback which can be used to make improvements in the final product.
Confirm your app’s value.
The last stage of validating or solidifying your app idea is setting up a charge and checking whether people are willing to pay for it. The willingness count will help you understand whether or not your app’s monetary value.
Perfect your elevator pitch
Knowing how to pitch an app idea can be of great help in your quest to get funding for an app. An elevator pitch is exactly how it sounds. It’s short, informative, and can get the attention of the app startup investors immediately. You should always dive into the pitching process with the assumption that the investors will only give you 30 seconds of their time for listening to the app idea.
Know the market
Knowing the target audience and the competition in the market will always be fruitful for you. It is very important to know the veins of the market your app will be functioning in. A market that is made up of not just your target audience but also your direct and indirect competitors, the supporting stakeholders, and even the government regulations.
How Do I Find Investors For My Mobile App?
An important part of answering where to find app startup investors lies in understanding how the investment rounds are structured.
Now when we say structured, we mean the funding rounds move in a set order. Knowing which funding round you need to poach can help answer a number of questions – where to find investors specific to your stage, whom to seek out for funds down the line, is there and if there, then what is the funding timeline? etc.
Seed Round: It is the earliest money that goes into a company, app, or idea. The seed funding mostly comes from the insiders who provide the initial startup capital for establishing the business.
Angel Round: Angel round is similar to seed round, but is usually more formal. They are often outside investors who buy common stock in the company but with more formal terms than seed investors’.
Series A: This is basically the first stage or round of large-scale venture capital funding for an app business. The Series A rounds generally bring in $2 to $10 million and get entrepreneurs the necessary capital for the business to develop its product fully and grow.
Series B, C, D, etc.: These rounds are held on the basis of the capital requirement of the company.
Now that you have gotten insights into the first part of how to raise money for an app idea, getting a list of investors should be the next thing on your agenda. There are numerous investors to get funding for an app from but not everyone is the right fit. AngelList is a website that has more than 40,000 investors but you should pick only the top 40 or so to get your app funded. Other websites to find investors for app ideas are Funded.com, Angel Investment Network.
Get referrals
There’s no harm in getting some benefit off of your network. Referrals are a great way to see investors so if you know someone who knows an investor, ask them to help you. Connecting with mediators who can refer you to some great app funding companies will be a smart move. A platform like LinkedIn is great for forming connections and asking for referrals. Once you get their attention, send in your pitch email with all the necessary details.
With this, we have seen the second part of ‘How to raise money for mobile app startup funding’, and now let’s move on to the third and final section.
After you have done your part to get mobile app development funding, it’s time to look into the different ways of raising money for startup.
What Are The Different Funding Options Available to Me?
Angel or Seed funding
Angel investors and venture capitalists are the first options that a startup app development company advises to their clients.
Angel investors do not generally ask for much business control in exchange for the money they give and that gives you more freedom. Venture capitalists, on the other hand, ask for more business control in exchange for funds. They however also provide mentorship. In the end, both Angel and Seed funding for app startups are a great way to secure funds.
Self-funding or Bootstrapping
How to raise funds for mobile apps yourself? You can become your own investor. Funding the business yourself in the initial stage will give you great benefits since you will have complete control over the business. And in cases where the apps become a success, you might not even need funding in the future. But you can always go to investment firms for loans in the later stages.
Bank loans
You can always go to banks for personal or business loans. Although you might have to keep collateral, the process of getting funds would be the fastest compared to any other option on the list. These days, governments are also being supportive of the startups’ growth, meaning you can expect more funding-assistance reforms coming in your way.
Crowdfunding platforms
Crowdfunding for mobile apps means raising money from a pool of investors where each one is offering a small sum of money. This kind of funding is usually done on crowdfunding platforms that are present online or on social media. In exchange for the contribution, you can give a reward or share of the business.
ICO & IEO
ICO and IEO funding is great for blockchain-based startups. The money is raised in the form of cryptocurrencies which makes it a little risky since such funds have an uncertain future. But this risk is hardly a concern for blockchain startups for being in the industry, they understand the pros and cons of cryptocurrencies.
This was our take on how to get app startup funding. Contact our team of startup app developers for further queries.
FAQs on How to Get Funding For Your Mobile App Startup
Q. How to raise funds for a startup?
The process of raising funds for a mobile startup is a multi-layered event. You will have to answer all these questions:
How much do I really need to fund my app?
How to get investors for an app?
What are the different ways to get funded?
On the basis of these answers, you will get several steps closer to getting funded on your mobile app idea.
Q. How to find investors for a mobile app?
There are many websites you can head out to for finding investors: AngelList, Funded.com, Angel Investment Network, etc. There are also several meetups that are held across the world for entrepreneurs and investors to meet and converse.
Q. When should I raise funds for my app idea?
According to our app developers for startups, the best stage when you should seek app funding is when you have crossed the app validation process and you have a basic understanding of what app features and technologies you have to focus on.
Blockchain – the concept/technology as powerful as the Internet itself has moved from the time when it was deemed to be overhyped to now when it has become an important part of a number of industries, banks, and government.
While the technology has made a prominent place in a number of processes on a very high-level and have found associations among a number of big brands like –
A general assumption has been formed that the disruptive technology is only practical for big names of the world and has, as a result, made itself very unapproachable for mass usage, unintentionally.
Our intent today is to remove the assumption and make Blockchain Startups a technology occurence that can be implemented on mass scales by businesses and industries of all size and across all categories. While, there have already been several use cases of Blockchain in Enterprise setup, it is the startups that need to reform with the power of Blockchain at the back of them.
Something we are going to attend to in this article.
This article is for you to get acquainted with the abilities of Blockchain for startups and how it can be used to not just make your business efficient but also mark it as a brand that is highly innovative. We will help you identify the ways Blockchain Startup can impact and make your processes a lot easier. And in case you wish to dive deep in the technology’s ABC, head on to our handbook on Entrepreneur’s Guide to Blockchain.
Now without further delay, let us get on to what can Blockchain do for YOU.
What can Blockchain do For Your Startups?
Can make you early adopters
Just like the starting days of the Internet, the Blockchain world is underdeveloped to a huge extent. There are a number of critical elements that will have to be addressed before Blockchain becomes a mass phenomenon.
For startups that are willing to act as fast movers and follow the plant the flag strategy, there is a golden opportunity to conceive and grow a community before space becomes too overly crowded with Blockchain business applications.
By investing time and resources to develop a business model with Blockchain at the center of the processes or even a major part of the working mechanism, will automatically give startups an edge over others working in the same domain – something that all startups need in a time where there are thousands of businesses working in the same category, fighting for the same piece of market.
Can Replace Antiquated Processes With Digital Systems
A number of startups operate on some or the other form of the legacy software or outdated infrastructure, which not just increases the cost of conducting business but also make them inefficient and inconsistent to a great extent. Plus, a great number of vital processes are manual in nature, meaning they are subject to the risk of human error to a massive extent.
With Blockchain for small businesses, startups will be able to solve a great amount of these issues. The technology is known to decentralize the pool of data segregated among a great number of different processes – something that solves the startups’ needs to rely on manual labor to collect and process data.
Can Secure Their Data
Cybersecurity is a point of concern for companies of all sizes across industries. The global spending on cybersecurity based services and products like automation and IoT is estimated to increase by $1 Trillion by the coming five years.
Noting the incredible security proof that Blockchain systems come with, they are poised to soon become the de-facto mode of gathering and organizing the enterprise data – and a primary answer behind the question on why do companies use Blockchain.
All the data gathered in the ledger gets automatically encrypted with the newest and greatest of the cryptographic methods, the warehouses are only accessible through a key-value mechanism which validates and authorizes the identification before granting access.
Moreover, the decentralized mechanism of Blockchain for small business reduces the security risk to a great extent. As the distributed system cannot get manipulated by any single entity, it is impossible for hackers to change the data without notifying everyone in the network – something that protects against corruption and give the control back to the actual users.
Now that you have seen how Blockchain can make your startup more efficient, let us look at the ways you can employ the technology in your startup to make your business more efficient, transparent, and decentralized. The answer which is same as one to Why do Companies use Blockchain.
Ways Blockchain for Startups Business can be Employed for Better Processes
Here are some of the top-most applications for Blockchain in your business –
1. Payment and money transfer
One of the most common applications of Blockchain in a startup is seen in use of technology in the payment and money transfer domain.
The present day story is that Blockchain is ready to transform transactions and startups are known to deal with a number of vendors across the world, for availing low-cost, high quality services. Blockchain with its cryptocurrency element comes in handy for making cross-border payments easier and a lot more cost effective than the traditional mode of payments, which are crippled by high transfer charges.
2. Contracts Creation and Abiding
As you are just starting, there are a number of contracts that you will have to get binded into – with your interior designers, your food and beverage vendor, your offshore software development company and a number of other third-party stakeholders.
With so many contracts to be made and ensured to be followed, use of Blockchain in business can come in very handy, through the Smart Contract route. Since we have already talked about the concept in our Smart Contract guide before, we won’t get too much into the depth into the mechanism here, but what we can tell you with respect to Contracts and Blockchain is that it is impossible for any of the involved party to break the Smart Contract.
3. Distributed cloud storage
A distributed cloud-storage comprises solutions around peer-to-peer decentralized cloud storage. By using the combination of cryptography and Blockchain to protect the files on both – transmission and in nodes – decentralized cloud storage makes your files unhackable and Blockchain a useful element of your startup.
In layman terms, distributed cloud storage system comes into existence when every element of the cloud storage, like processing, transport, and storage of data is put into the blockchain ecosystem. Once that happens, every data – how it moved, who accessed it, and how it was governed can be seen by everyone who has the access to the Blockchain. A system of this type help in offering full accountability, traceability, and transparency for cloud, and entities which are either using or managing the cloud.
4. Protection of Digital Identity
Another crucial application of Blockchain in businesses is Identity Management.
Identity management is something that the world suffers from. No matter what business or team size you belong to, you are never truly safe from your identity being leaked on the internet and in worst case scenario, in the hands of the hackers.
In the case of startups, what happens is that they – in an ode to seek growth and efficient performance – sign up and subscribe to a number of websites that in some cases can be malicious.
Blockchain, in this case, can be used as a platform to protect identities from fraudulent activities. The technology can help businesses handle the problems of reconciliation and authentication faced by a number of industries. Moreover, it allows businesses the freedom to develop encrypted digital identities that replace usernames and pin codes with comprehensive security elements that are capable of saving the institutions and their customers’ valuable resources and time.
5. Supply Chain Management
There are a number of different ways Blockchain can be used in business when it comes to the Supply Chain Management process, to make it more real-time, accessible, transparent, and efficient. Here are the different applications of Blockchain in SCM –
Provenance Tracking
In the blockchain-powered supply chain management process, provenance tracking and record keeping become very easy for the product information can be easily accessed through RFID tags and embedded sensors. Everything about the product, straight from origination to its present status can be tracked via Blockchain. Along with this, the provenance tracking can also be used for detection of frauds in any part of supply chain.
Cost Reduction
When Blockchain is used in supply chain for speeding up the administrative processes, the additional costs occurring in the system gets automatically reduced with the transactions’ security guaranteed. Secondly, elimination of intermediaries and middlemen in the supply chain lowers the chances of product duplicacy, frauds, while saving them a lot of money. The payments made can even be processed by the suppliers and customers in supply chain with cryptocurrencies rather than them relying on the EDI.
Establishing Trust
Having trust in complex supply chains with many participants is necessary for smooth operations. For example, when a manufacturer shares his products with suppliers, he/she should be able to depend on them for following factory safety standards. Also, when it comes to regulatory compliances such as custom enforcers, trust plays a vital role. The immutable nature of blockchain in the supply chain is well-designed to prevent tampering and establishing trust, marking trust as the primal application of Blockchain in business.
6. Quality Customer Support
There are two ways through which Blockchain is used in Business for increasing the quality of customer support.
Data Cleansing Whether it’s due to inept data import tools or human negligence, CRM users all over the world have to deal with inaccurate or duplicate data at some level. With blockchain in place, a customer can have their very own personal block that presents companies with a unified and accurate picture of their personal information, past transactions, subscriptions, etc. Hence, blockchain helps these companies circumvent the issue of inaccurate, obsolete and duplicate data records altogether. This consequently yields better insights into customers and helps businesses engage them more effectively.
Loyalty Programs Loyalty programs aim to drive profits by adding value to the customer experience. However, due to their variable mileage, volatile value and associated privacy concerns, they prove to be cumbersome for customers and yield a low ROI. However, in a manner very similar to cryptocurrencies, brands can make use of blockchain to reimagine and reinvigorate their loyalty programs. With blockchain, consumers would have a single decentralized wallet that is compatible with all brands. They would not be bound by the rules and limitations of individual brands and point redemption would be greatly simplified. The consumer will have far greater control over the whole experience and brands will complete for their wallet by offering them better deals.
7. Advertisement and Promotion
The need for promotion while necessary for businesses of all size is something that is unignorable for startups who are just starting up and are in need of awareness in the market. Even after being one of the most important elements of a business, advertisement industry is filled with a number of loopholes that makes it unnecessarily expensive and opaque for the startups.
When Blockchain is introduced to the mix, there are a number of things that get sorted and streamlined on the promotion front.
Let us look at the benefits of using Blockchain in your business in terms of decentralized advertising.
Better Audience Targeting
Earlier, as marketers, we used to rely on more than one sources to get information on users’ buying habits. But now with blockchain, advertisers will get the freedom of creating buyers’ demographics by getting the necessary information straight from the buyer themselves. The technology will gather all the information that the users wish to share their buying pattern and get them to the advertisers.
Reliable Ad Buys
The problem with online advertising is the lack of knowledge related to the fact that it is absolutely difficult to know whether the people who clicked on the ads were genuine buyers or paid clickers. However, since blockchain is transparent, advertisers can easily make out if the clicks that they are getting, even coming from the population they are targeting or not. This way, the ad buys would prove itself to be of value to money.
Ad Verification
Many times, it so happens that you see a banner advertisement on Facebook listing price of the product as N, but when you visit the site, the number is shown as X. The identification and rectification of issues such as these are the tasks done by the Ad verifiers, whom the networks pay heavily to. However, blockchain helps ensure that the actual information is exactly same as what shown in an advertisement. It reduces the heavy cost that is associated with the ad auditing process.
Management of Advertisement Inventory
Ad inventory, as we all know is the space that advertisers have for ad selling. It can be calculated on the monthly basis. The information that goes into the whole ad inventory management cycle – number of space, length of the advertisement, maintaining records of which day is assigned to which brand, the amount that has to be charged space placement wise etc. – are way too much to handle manually. By using smart contracts and blockchain, brands can not just manage the inventory better but also get payments from advertisers on time.
8. To Generate Funds
One of the biggest sign of success for any startup and also the one which helps them grow to their maximum ability is the amount of investments that they receive. The moment your startup gets backed by investors, you don’t just become an establishment to look out for but also get sufficient funds to support your growth and expansion needs.
Now, when we talk about generating funds or raising investments, there are quite a few options available to the startups and entrepreneurs – Crowdfunding, Angel Investments, Venture Capitalist, Bank Loans, Small Business Administration Loans, etc. While out of all of these modes of generating funds, Venture Capitalist has established itself as the most preferred form of raising fund as entrepreneurs get not just funds but also the experience of VC investors, ICO (a Blockchain powered mode of raising fund) is soon replacing the VC model.
There are a number of reasons that have not just brought the demand for VC and ICO at an equal stage but have also increased the fund investment count for ICO fund model. But, the ones that make ICO ideal for you are:
Easier:
Compared to the VC fund model that asks for entrepreneurs to come prepared with validating market and financial response that proves how your startup or idea is a success, ICOs have a lot fewer benchmarks to follow, making it easier for entrepreneurs to raise funds through the ICO route.
Global:
While VC funding operates within a set geographical boundary, ICO can be raised from investors in the UAE while you are in Australia.
Speedy:
As opposed to the VC funding timeline to raise funds, ICO lasts for around 30 days, only. Making it a lot speedy for entrepreneurs to raise money.
So, here were the several benefits that come tagged with the integration of Blockchain in a startup. But, these benefits like all the genuine, validated benefits, don’t come without their set of challenges.
Specially when the technology is as disruptive and less explored as Blockchain, the instances of businesses facing a challenge in its implementation is very obvious.
Let us look at what challenges Startups face and the probable solutions there can be to overcome and adopt the technology in the business process.
Challenges Startups have to overcome
Complexity in Regulations
The biggest obstacle facing enterprise blockchain adoption is the lack of regulations safeguarding entrepreneurs if something goes wrong. While, there are a number of regulations coming up aimed at bettering the Blockchain adoption rate, the time when you will have a legal regulation in place is still far away.
Presence of Legacy Systems
Startups that wish to actually benefit from Blockchain will have to have a DLT based infrastructure, something that requires technical know-how and capital. The solution to this is investing in skilled Blockchain developers who know how to integrate the technology in the existing system and then integrate on a small scale rather than going all in.
High Hack Incidents
For something anointed to be highly secure, Blockchain doesn’t come sans hack and security breach instances. The internet is filled with Blockchain hack events causing people a loss of millions and millions of money, making safety the biggest factor keeping Blockchain receive full Enterprise adoption.
The solution to this challenge is employing Private or Permissioned Blockchain ecosystem instead of Permissionless or Open Blockchain. By making Blockchain permissioned, you add another security level to the mechanism, making it completely unhackable. Also, since the number of stakeholders, in this case, lowers, the throughput time increases by manifold, making it easier to handle multiple transactions at one time.
Now that we have seen how Blockchain can make Startups more efficient and the probable challenges along with the ways you can conquer them, it is time to look into the Blockchain platforms that you will have to work around to employ the technology in your startup.
Enterprise Blockchain System Platforms
Here are the platforms that we have been trusting for the development of enterprise grade Blockchain system for your Startups –
Hyperledger Fabric
Quorum
VechainThor
R3 Corda
Hedera Hashgraph
As you could see, the enterprise blockchain systems usually have a lot more throughput, lesser latency, and a lot less complex consensus protocols compared to the standard public blockchains such as Ethereum or Bitcoin.
With this, you not just know why to invest in Blockchain for bettering your startup efficiency and the various applications of Blockchain in your business but also how to establish yourself as an innovative company but also what platforms to use to make it possible. What is left now is to get in touch with our Blockchain app developers and get started with the bettering of your startup.
The open-source Flutter SDK is a Google UI toolkit that creates attractive, natively compiled mobile app, from a single codebase.
With apps being downloaded and used by millions of people in a rapid way, the mobile app development is skyrocketing.
There are many companies that are making use of this trend and contributing to the increase of app downloads. Here are some facts:
Did you know that android users can choose from 2.7 million apps, making Google Play the biggest app store?
The Apple App Store is the second-largest app store with almost 1.82 million available apps for iOS.
You should know that the accurate number of applications change because both the app stores regularly remove low quality content from their app stores and accept apps from the developers on a daily basis. However, the number of apps has been steadily increasing over the years.
In 2020, global mobile app revenues were over 581 billion U.S. dollars. In 2023, mobile apps are projected to generate more than 935 billion U.S. dollars in revenues via paid downloads and in-app advertising.
After reading the above facts and data, it is clear that the app development market is rapidly growing, and mostly the startups are taking the lead in developing apps and increasing their reach. If you have an idea and are confused about which platform to use, the best suggestion would be mobile app development with Flutter.
What Makes Flutter a Better Choice for Developing a Startup App?
As they say, numbers never lie. Let us look at some data revolving around Flutter app development services:
According to a 2020 developer survey, Flutter is the second most popular cross-platform mobile framework used by software developers across the globe. According to the survey, 39% of software developers chose Flutter development services for apps. This usage is expected to grow in 2021 as well.
Google broke down the share of Flutter developers and maximum work for a startup. Here is all you need to know: 35% work for a startup, 26% are enterprise developers, 19% are self-employed, and 7% work for design agencies.
Google reported a 80% spike of Flutter built apps in Play Store after version 1.20 was released. The number of apps built with Flutter in the Play Store has increased from 50,000 to 90,000 since April 2020.
As per Google Trends, Flutter is the leading programming language since February 2021 followed by React Native to develop customized cross-platform mobile apps.
Creating a startup mobile app with Flutter is in vogue and why would it not be? Flutter provides mind blowing benefits! Let’s discuss some benefits, shall we?
Benefits Of Building A Mobile App With Flutter
1. Fast development process
Flutter cross-platform application development is a huge buzz creator due to its “Hot Reloading” or “Hot Restart” features. With the help of this feature developers are able to write codes and finish the project development in real-time. As a result, coders increase their productivity and save a lot of valuable time.
2. Utilization of widgets
Flutter integrated apps provide a wide range of widgets including navigation, scrolling, fonts, and icons that are customizable regardless of the screen size. These widgets are easy to customize and make the app development process fast and simple.
3. Single code base for multiple platforms
The reason why Flutter is trending is because of its ‘write-once’ approach. Writing multiple codes for different platforms is no longer significant. Flutter mobile app developers only have to code once and not separately for both operating systems, that is Android and iOS, that is why Flutter is considered by most of the developers. As a result, Flutter makes the app development process as cost effective as possible.
4. User-friendly interface
Flutter can customize almost anything visible on your startup app. Be it shapes, colors, shadows, clipping or transforming elements, Flutter allows developers to execute everything seamlessly. Hence, it is needless to say that Flutter makes the app development process flexible and simple without adding extra workload.
5. Potential to move beyond smartphones
If you want to create a startup app, why do you want to limit it to just smartphones? Flutter cross platform app framework works as a full-fledged development tool. With Flutter you app can function on any platform- Windows, Android, Linux, IOS etc.
6. Serverless apps
Flutter allows the creation of serverless apps. Developers can use Google’s firebase support as back end and create serverless startup apps. Flutter provides a quick development cycle to help developers achieve their targeted time frames.
Numerous companies are choosing Flutter to develop exceptional apps in record time. Due to all the benefits, features, and functions listed above, creating an app using
If startup app development companies choose Flutter, then it’s the correct choice made. Flutter eliminates the struggle of time constraint and limited budget faced by startups trying to release apps across multiple platforms. Also, it is a blend of all the best Google ideas and technologies, a mixture which results in the creation of a powerful mobile framework.
Step By Step Guide To Flutter App Development
Step-1: The idea
This one is a cliché but don’t all great applications begin with an out of the box idea? Once you have an idea, you need to conduct a market research and find out your target audience. If you wish to create an app then don’t just begin blindly; instead, dig deep and research the facts, concepts and competitors. It is always important to find out how you are better than your competitors.
Step-2: Flutter for MVP
A minimum viable product or MVP acknowledges business owners to validate their idea, gather feedback, and identify customer’s needs. MVP is useful in avoiding market failure and investing on a product that is not backed up by proper market surveys and research.
Being an open source, Flutter complements MVP development. With Flutter increasing the pace of the development process, the process has become more simplified and efficient. Also, Flutter’s compatibility with Firebase, doesn’t require you to separate backends for building simple MVP. Creating MVP with flutter provides an added benefit of delivery of an intricately designed solution.
Step-3: User interface and user experience
Flutter not only provides us with native performance and hot reload for fast development but also access to beautiful, native components. The Flutter toolkit has opened a gateway to allow for a multitude of UI/UX and, by using its own source code, eliminating platform limitations.
Flutter is becoming an all-platform framework. What about when you want to use your startup app or a smaller or a bigger device? Be it a smartwatch, TV, laptop or smartphone. So, you can build native mobile apps using flutter to provide a wider range of devices that the app can function on.
Flutter’s adaptive components help you overcome such challenges. Adaptive layouts means how your app proficiently displays the UI on the device where it is being viewed on.
There is no need to build separate code for a multitude of devices, as Flutter already supports that using a single code-base. There are packages you can rely on which are equipped with native iOS & Android widgets to help your app give a platform-specific look.
Step-4: Development, integration and deployment
Startup mobile app development is a highly interactive process. The process includes- planning, development, coding, testing and reviewing. This is the step where you must look out for a Flutter mobile app company that can develop an android app using Flutter.
Mobile app development comprises three integral parts that are – backend, API and mobile app front end.
Backend: The Backend has the information that the end user cannot see. It includes databases and server-side objects that are important for supporting mobile app functions.
API: Application Programming Interface is a communication method between the app and the backend.
Front end: The front end of an application is what the user uses. Mostly an app has an interactive UX that uses APIs and backends in order to manage the data.
Once everything is in place, the next step is deploying your web server (API) into a production environment that is scalable. The second is deploying the app on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
The Bottom Line
The current app development market is extremely competitive! In order to make a new app stand out within a limited budget, the product should be extraordinary enough to drive the attention of the crowd.
If you are launching your startup app, Flutter is the platform to choose as it allows you to develop user-friendly apps across multiple platforms in a cost-effective way. Unlike other platforms, Flutter app developers create apps with a smooth UI for their users.
Flutter is bound to transform the cross-platform app development industry with its capabilities to emboss customization and expedite the app development process. Dive deep into the world of Flutter app development company and join the transformation.
Blockchain Technology has witnessed phenomenal growth in the last few years and appears to stay on track in gaining enterprise adoption. But while it has covered an appreciable curve of general acceptance, it continues to baffle people conceptually.
Striking similarities between Blockchain and databases makes people wonder “is Blockchain just a database?” Yes, Blockchain is a database that comes with several distinguishable traits. These traits are what lead to the debate of Blockchains versus traditional databases.
Therefore, in this post, we would systematically approach the definitions, similarities, and differences between the two to enable a better understanding of the subject for entrepreneurs and startups looking to explore blockchain.
Table Of Content
What is a Traditional Database?
What is Blockchain?
Defining Blockchain & Traditional Database
Management of Traditional & Blockchain Database
Reasons to Use a Traditional Database
Reasons to Use Blockchain Technology
Closing Thoughts
What is a Traditional Database?
Data structures are defined as a storage format for efficient management of data. A traditional database is nothing but a data structure, that helps in storing and working with data. Each organization, from a startup to a Government entity, uses databases depending upon the scale and size of their operations. The aspect that makes databases utilitarian, is they allow users to fetch the data. In technical terms, this is referred to as requesting or querying data that is achieved by Structured Query Language, SQL.
The first-ever architecture of databases was based on a hierarchical style that made it possible to collect and store data. But that was just about it. As technology caught on with time, dragging the tide of businesses with it, data became complex. Likewise, analysts wanted databases to interoperate so they could draw better business conclusions. Thus, the database design shifted to a relational model. Today, all you need for an end-to-end data optimizing process is a Database Management System (DBMS).
Databases are no rocket science, in that they are simple tables. Tables are fields (columns) that contain the details regarding the nature of data. Rows are called records.
What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is a decentral database that acts as a storage for chunks of bundled information called blocks. The reason the blocks are referred to as chains is that each block carries the hashed data of the block added to the ledger before it. This goes back to Genesis, the first-ever block that was mined for bitcoin. A hash is a code that encrypts the transactions in a given block. This code is, essentially, a pointer, a name of sorts, that uniquely identifies a block.
The bitcoin protocol makes it mandatory for every new block to contain the hash of the previous block plus the hash of the block that contains information for newly processed transactions.
But as any blockchain service providers would tell you, finding this new hash isn’t easy. Blockchain technology underpinning bitcoin adjusts hashing difficulty by calculating the total computing power of the network. The more miners there are, the harder it is to find a hash and vice versa. In return for validating blocks and helping run the Blockchain, miners are rewarded with bitcoin.
A. Defining Blockchain & Traditional Database
Defining the Traditional Database Architecture
Traditional databases are based on client-server architecture. Clients are end-users of the service that request access to a particular set of data. This request goes through a server that hosts the database. Open database connectivity is used to establish a communication line between clients and the database.
This line is further secured by the client software that is authenticated up ahead for access. In private databases, access is granted to only those who have valid login credentials and a password. An example could be confidential health records of a hospital. If a database is public and open for all, then a user account is not needed and the data can be accessed from a website. This, in turn, has played a huge role in Blockchain transforming the closed healthcare system.
Defining the Blockchain Architecture
Blockchain Technology has come off age and offers multiple architectural models such as permissioned, private, or hybrid blockchain.
Network nodes are the lifeline of Blockchain technology and they operate on a Peer-to-Peer, P2P, model. Each peer/node can correspond with a second node. There is no superiority or bias between 2 nodes in terms of responsibilities but yes, there could be a difference in total computing resources they possess. Peers of a network ensure the veracity of the Blockchain.
For the transactions to be manipulated either a 51% attack would need to happen (as mentioned above) or multiple peers would have to collude and accept blocks with falsified data. By architecture, Blockchain database technology protocols accept the longest-running, active chain. Therefore, its decentralized administration makes it safe and secure to be trusted and earns it extra points in the matchup of Blockchain vs distributed database.
B. Management of Traditional & Blockchain Database
Managing Traditional Database
Databases support CRUD operations i.e. you can create, read, update, and delete records. Database management is centralized and under the control of an administrator. This individual has the power to modify the database, potentially at will. Their key responsibility is to up the performance and lower database redundancy. As the database expands, so do the daily audits and the corresponding checklist of maintenance tasks.
To aid in this process, a primary administrator can divide his/her tasks and distribute work between multiple users, each assigned a minor task. This could be anything from data entry to modification.
Databases require backup storage as anything could go wrong. Data can be corrupt, servers could crash, and critical information could be lost. In such cases, the files are retrieved from backups. Backing up also allows archiving multiple versions of a database. As an example, consider an address change. Whereas you might contact relevant Government bodies to update “records” and issue you an ID reflecting the same, they will still save a copy of the last address, for record-keeping.
Managing Blockchain
Blockchain technology decouples administration and divides it amongst all the nodes of the network that ensure it runs with their computing power. Each of the nodes stores a copy of the complete Blockchain. In wanting to change the contents of a block, its hash would have to be changed. Since Blockchain technology automatically revises the difficulty level for hashing a block, a tremendous amount of computing power would be required to change the hash of all the blocks. The only situation where that would be possible is a 51% attack, wherein the rogue actor has more computing power than the majority of the network.
As a result, Blockchain technology is proven to be immutable. Since records can’t be changed, this adds transparency to the architecture. They are also remarkably fault-tolerant as even when a few nodes (computers) are down, the rest of the nodes will ensure a 24/7 uptime.
Since no authoritarian permissions are needed to transact on a Blockchain, this makes them permissionless. Therefore, you can use Blockchain as a database but with the extra convenience of these features.
Reasons to Use a Traditional Database
1. They are customizable
In the Blockchain vs database debate, the latter wins hands down in terms of customizable options. Since traditional databases are administered centrally, permissions, privileges, and set-up requirements can be optimized. The relational architecture and backup practices pave the way for a database to be relocated anywhere. Developers can add plugins to the database and improve the front end for customer-centricity.
2. They are Stable
Traditional databases can tolerate high volumes of transactions per second as permissions are centralized and the controls to update data are in the hands of a few. Client-server architecture reduces the dependency on nodes that are substituted by standalone server centers.
Database administrators revert to sharding and shrinking to optimize the speed of the network. In the event of a power outage, downtime, or any other technical glitch resulting in data loss, the backup acts as a default option to reset the last version.
3. They Deliver Speed
The traditional database design has undergone a lot of upgrades over the years to suit faster delivery times and high-end analytical operations. Big data analytics is a case in point.
Where Does the Traditional Database Lags – Issues That Blockchain can Solve
1. Ethical Issues
The same centralization of power that provides for the above-mentioned advantages could also be the straw that breaks the camels’ back. Critics of the system suggest moral issues with handing over the data into the hands of a single administrator. There is an ongoing war to monetize data in every which way possible.
An open market for selling data to third-party vendors already thrives. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was an eye-washing experience that brings to light what a centralized database with a single administrator, Facebook, could do.
2. Contingencies
Considering the case of a single administrator on top of everyone else. What happens if this individual switches to another employer? Knowledge transfers take their jolly good time not to mention the confidentiality agreements. Resetting of passwords, and appointing new administrators is a task in itself. This recruitment is a huge pain in the neck for project stakeholders.
3. IT issues
Every organization needs a database of some kind or the other. The fact that a company stores information in a database doesn’t signify that the database is safe. The entire IT infrastructure needs to be standardized. A single loophole, given the sophistication of hackers, could sabotage enterprise operations. Security analysts must install and operate effective layers to secure traditional databases.
Reasons to Use Blockchain Technology
1. They are Fault Tolerant
When debating Blockchain vs database, the former wins comfortably in the department of system preservation. Blockchain technology is highly fault-tolerant. Its uptime is not reliant on a few server centers but hundreds and thousands of nodes that offer processing input to run the system.
In the scenario that a few nodes are turned off, the overall efficiency of the network would remain unchallenged.
2. They are Secure
Blockchain technology is one of the most secure infrastructural investments you can make today, especially when it comes to securing mobileapps using blockchain. Each node on the network is supposed to download a copy of the blockchain for validating new blocks. To change even a single block requires each node to update its copy which in turn requires a self-defeating amount of processing prowess for an adversarial power.
3. They Offer Transparency
Provided the Blockchain is public, you can view all the transactions that have ever been recorded on it by simply downloading a copy of the ledger. Unlike a bank, where all the transfers are hidden, Blockchain technology opens the door for critics to fact-check and follow the trail of money in dubious cases.
These are really desperate times if nothing more. The COVID-19 pandemic was as unanticipated for the world as a bolt of lightning striking the earth. Since most of the influential countries are on complete lockdown while others are preparing for the possibility of the worst, its domino effect is putting the world economy in absolute shambles and welcoming the recession which was already due. Amid all this chaos and unforeseen, lies the future of many existing startup businesses paranoid to the core they might not see the sun of the booming economy.The conundrum that most entrepreneurs must be in right now has to be – whether this precarious Coronavirus winter is the best time to start a business or similarly, invest in developing a idea for a mobile app.
Multiple sources may state the obvious speculation that the economy is on a downfall leading to a mass loss on a global level; nevertheless, there is always a silver lining for some and we are going to bring it to you.
So, without any further ado, let’s embark on the road to the startup advantages of startup app development or starting a startup ideas during pandemic.
Why should entrepreneurs build a mobile app or go ahead with their post pandemic startup ideas?
1. You may just be the only fish in the pond
The ambivalence of the current situations has believed to scare-off the wantrepreneurs from the market. They only initiate when the situations are in favor of the possibility of earning money readily. This gives enough space to the entrepreneurs like you who are ahead of the curve and believe in running opposite from the crowd (pun intended).
Like Salmon fish, it is the ones who swim the opposing current towards upstream, jump waterfalls and do not stray from their goal irrespective of exogenous conditions, that would come out stronger once the pandemic is over and the economy starts to become stable.
2. An MVP now can make your business stable for future
A true entrepreneur knows that the best income source for any startup is the pocket of customers and not capital ventures. Since Sequoia Venture Capital has announced COVID-19 to be the ‘Black Swan’ of 2020, companies who were expecting to fundraise are in a pickle now. This is one of the obstacles or rather effects of recession on startups and markets in general.
Ipso facto, it is not ideal for startups to be utterly dependent on these fundings in a recessionary economy. This is what answers the question of “why do we need MVP” . Developing an MVP at this point is your best bet to generate revenue and ensure self-sustainability.
{To know how do you develop an MVP, refer to this extensive article}
Since an MVP is not an over-engineered solution, it takes less development time on top of the cost of development that’s easy on the pocket.
3. If these apps are bagging big, so can you
Let’s look at some niches and their applications that are the most in-demand right now and are truly capturing the business opportunities during recession as they come.
Entertainment and Streaming apps
Recent events have limelight that people are now more willing to spend on streaming subscriptions. Since the world is on lockdown, people are reaching out to these entertainment mobile applications to pass the time.
Although, things might not be as smooth for Netflix on the production front, according to Yahoo reports, applications like Netflix in this niche are really profiting since the app downloads and subscriptions are on the peak. Meanwhile, people are spending more average hours of streaming.
Not that more hours spent, in any way, will benefit the company anymore; it is something startups like you can benefit from if you plan to develop an app like Netflix.
This popularity has not left entertainment apps like Tiktok from the picture. You can see many celebrities using the application for various purposes be it for educating people and spreading awareness or the subtle joy of doing everything and nothing on the app. If you unleash an MVP of the app like these in the market now, you’ll be one step ahead of the competitors.
Video conferencing apps
Since most of the organizations have implemented work from home, the app stores have seen a huge surge in the downloads of video conferencing apps like Zoom. It is currently number one free application in the App Store
Mental Health and meditation apps
According to Adweek, Breethe a meditation app has secured 41st spots in the health and fitness category ranking by skipping 31 spots over the last week itself and BetterMe, another meditation app, jumped 70 spots up to 26th position.
Moreover, the Ginger app and other mental health platforms that are offered by employers to their employees have witnessed a surge in usage since employees have turned to online tools to manage their anxiety. Moreover, in stressful times like this, people are reaching towards such mental health and meditation applications to maintain their calm.
Food delivery app segment
Due to the on-going social distancing and lockdown, people have turned towards the food delivery applications. In fact, on comparing the average daily downloads from February to March 15, it was noted that apps like Instacart, Walmart Grocery, and Shipt have witnessed their daily downloads surge by 218%, 160%, and 124%, respectively. This surge might be owed to the “contactless delivery” initiative which was first implemented in China.
There are many pandemic proof business ideas like these that are taking the most advantage.
4. Can get a hold of brimming talent for less value
This is one of the many positive effects of recession on start-ups. Once the lockdown situation has passed and recession finally hits the world economy, the high unemployment rate will prevail – something you can, fortunately, benefit from as a startup.
Instead of professionals, you can hire fresh talent with a lot of potential to offer. As dismal as it is, in recessionary times, people are more willing to do the work for below-market salaries in return for benefits and equity-based recompense.
Moreover, a market headed towards the downfall also produces many refugees from big companies. They can really help startups with their expertise and experience.
5. Chance to mold value proposition as per market demand
Unlike established organizations, you can easily modify your startup’s value proposition to make it more suited to the market slowdown and minimize any adverse impact of recession on business. After all, ‘a bend in the road is not an end of the road as long as you take the turn’.
To make this scenario clearer, let’s say the product you developed enhances productivity. Then, when the times are good you can market it as a ‘revenue generator’ whereas, in situations like these when the market is down, it can be portrayed as a ‘cost-saver’ – something which is more promising.
For instance, meditation applications were used by people to get away from work stress and get a little detached from it; however, now it’s working as a great tool to increase mindfulness and productivity.
6. More time to measure your steps
The saying “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” is apt when it comes to initiating any mobile app startup ideas.
Because of the slow pace of the market economy, you have an upper hand to plan out everything related to your startup and the mobile app you are planning to develop. This would not only give you a chance to point out any mistakes or scope of improvement, but also innovate ways for cost-cutting, something which you cannot afford to do in the time of economic frenzy.
7. You can get resources in cheap
This is certainly not a brainer that the prices of resources will significantly drop in the coming recession. So, you can easily hire experienced and fresher personnel. Moreover, everything you need to fuel your business startup will cost you less in times like these.
As an entrepreneur, the two most valuable resources are time and money. During the down market, companies are made to negotiate below the list prices and in fact, even barter for in-kind services. Such situations enable you to make deals reducing the costs and conserve the cash.
8. Endure now for prosperous future
If you wait for the tides to mellow down, you may not reach the heights of success you can reach by riding these perilous tides. The point is – do not remain on the sidelines and wait for the uncertainties to perish. Business is all about taking the risk. The bigger the risk, the bigger the success.
If you can manage to survive this COVID-19 and recession winter, you will definitely emerge as a successful startup as opposed to those businesses starting at an economic turnaround.
Apart from these genuine and incredible advantages of starting a startup or developing an app during COVID-19 and recession, there are other things that may play in the favor of tech startups and also validate the fact that recessions are the perfect time to start a business.
The fact that the U.S. government has decided to spend $8 billion to fight the outbreak. This would include not only the states, hospitals, and other medical providers but also the tech startups and companies in the healthcare space, like those innovating mHealth med and self-diagnosis apps, among many other things. So, if you are a startup interested in targeting this industry, you can surely benefit to a great extent.
Although this is not the world’s first recession and neither the last and the same goes for the pandemic (unfortunately), these might be just a great time to start a business and help it flourish. If you have left a scope of confusion, reach out to our team of android app developer to get the answer.
Effective design is the best sales pitch! Design is good when it serves a purpose and turns a few heads, but it becomes phenomenal when it can twirl your client by the pixel. And this is where most designers face a roadblock. The only problem is, they somehow fail to associate “selling” with designing. And for those who don’t fall into that category, are most probably doing it wrong.We, designers come across a wide variety of clients to appease. Some of them turn out to be quite friendly and supportive, who hands over the liberty to the project in a barrel with other important stuff you might need to know. But some are more specific about their requirements and prefer to keep the freedom under a leash. Whoever we work with, the bottom-line remains the same: ideas don’t sell themselves. The key is to adapt to the ‘sales strategy’ to suit the customer. These are soft skills every designer must have!
Playing the role of an effective virtual tour guide isn’t a cakewalk, but I have for you, a few valuable and time-tested skills to help you add muscle to your selling.
Here are some pointers that you can mobilize to sell the design to your clients.
1. Know your Client : Get Talking
The number one rule of sales is getting to know your customer. This is where all the magic happens. It always starts with a string of conversations. The trick is to not let the thread go cold. At the start of a project, gather as much information about the client as possible. This will serve you well in the future in navigating through what actually matters to your client. You can ask about their city, (a classic conversation starter), the weather may be, or about their likes and so on. And if you hit the right buttons, you would be amazed at what a simple conversation can uncork about your client’s design preferences, unless of course, you are Sherlock Holmes. Here’s what happens when you get talking:
You would get a clearer picture of what your client would prefer in your design.
A friendly conversation establishes trust. And once your client begins to trust you, the restrictions fall apart giving way for a fair amount of liberty on the projects you’re handling.
Once clients feel comfortable working with you, 80% of your pitching is done. They would start taking your designs more seriously and who knows, their next string of projects might have your name on them.
Establishing a relationship with the client is a fundamental precursor to pitching design ideas to them. It always gets them listening and responding more positively to your ideas.
2. DO YOUR HOMEWORK: GAIN CREDIBILITY
Decision making in design can be a bit challenging. It is not like throwing in variables in a formula to get to the right answer. Therefore, there’s always room for error. And this is why you need to have an answer for everything you do because rest assured there will be questions!
The business of design dictates that there exists logical reasoning for every UI/ UX move you make. There needs to be a reason for your chosen palette of colors or, your one-page layout preference. Backing your ideas up with concrete statistics is the way to go. A little bit of research goes a long way. It is always advisable to have complete knowledge of the amazing solution you are about to present since this dramatically reduces the chances of skewing up the thought process. This way, you can let the data talk for itself. And clients seldom argue with data.
However, where data falls short, big players come in handy. Another way to gain credibility is by making examples out of well-recognized names in the market. Think of this as a simple hack to the path of least resistance. If your idea coincides with Google’s, to some extent, then that should definitely be a part of your pitching strategy. This little information can open up doors you never thought existed. The bottom line is, clients will have a lot of queries, and you need to have all the answers ready to make for a smooth design selling work-day!
3. KNOW THE TRENDS: DESIGN FOR THE FUTURE
Don’t just be a great designer, be a smart one. We happen to live in a world where nothing is constant, except change. And when it comes to design, change is what pulls the wagon.
The next time you have a design intervention, do quick trend research. Make yourself aware of the big trends in the market and find out the ones that will stick. You can incorporate those in your designs and make it work. Thinking out of the box is a gift, but thinking smart is an acquired taste. Whatever you do, keep in mind that there’s a difference between an unprecedented risk and well-thought-out-and-researched one. You would definitely need to avoid the former.
If you look closely, you would find that there exist two broad kinds of designers, the trend-setters and the trend-followers. Who do you want to be?
4. PRESENTATION, PRESENTATION, PRESENTATION
Even the best, path-breaking, award-winning ideas need a good presentation to get them out of the shed. Which is why, in order to sell your design ideas effectively, you will need more than a few sketches or words.
Consider making a pitch desk that communicates your ideas in a way that catches the client’s imagination. Make sure that they get the bigger picture. While addressing the client, make sure that you put everything in context. Use mockup templates, distribute design samples, go the extra mile. This will help the client visualize what the final design will emulate. The closer your working prototype comes to the real-life design functionality, the closer you will be to sealing the deal.
5. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR CLIENT: ACCEPT CRITICISM
In a profession without absolutes, criticism comes in bountiful. Your work might be your territory, but you need to keep in mind that you have been hired to solve a problem. And how effectively you do it, measures the conversion rate. Your clients may not have all the design know-hows, but they know exactly what they want and how they want it. So it’s best to always stay on top of your game and pitch your design ideas without getting too defensive.
Your clients need to know that you are distilling their design ideas and steering them to the best possible fruition and not taking it as a challenge. So treading with a touch of finesse would be a great idea. Instead of responding “I don’t think this change is required”, you could tone it down to a “While the changes you have suggested are completely do-able, you might find that it already satisfies these requirements, if you re-examine the one I have submitted.”
The manner of accepting the feedback on the design is critical to its final acceptance. You will find yourself in situations, where a positive attitude, attention to detail and an inane ability to address all the pain-points will ensure that the client is more receptive to your version of the final design that otherwise.
Quick Tip: You are on the same side as your client, stop taking it as a challenge.
Summary
With design, you need to keep two things in mind:
Less is more
It is always better to show than to tell
Even though the thought of “selling” might make you cringe, it is a milestone to achieve to make your designs see the light of the day. Having said that, you need to believe in your pixels and your instincts to see you through the worst because at the end of the day, you are what you present. Figuring out the art of presenting your design ideas, pitching them articulating them proficiently and ‘closing’ the design sale are important skills that will come in handy rather regularly over the course of your career.
You as an entrepreneur would only want what’s best for your business in the long run, right? Well, one piece of advice that we could venture you in is to go for the most popular mobile app development platform globally – Android. One has to take into consideration several benefits of Android apps for business growth to conjecture why it is the right choice. Ipso facto, we should better get started with the statistics proving as a solid cornerstone to our argument on why Android apps for business are a viable option. With Android 11 getting prepared to offer its set of benefits to the businesses, the time is all the more of the essence here for choosing Android as a go-to approach for mobile app development for startups.
Since numbers work the best when calculating profitable pursuits for businesses, this graph below representing the market share of OS platforms is evidence enough. It is clear that Android has more voraciously captured the global market and has become the first choice of many hardware companies as well as users in general.
More statistics such as Google Play made almost 3x more first-time app installs in the third quarter of 2019 than the App Store, amounting to $21.6 billion during the quarter – a change that accounted for an 11% YoY increase from Q3 2018, are what make people invest in Android.
In fact, according to Sensor Tower reports, the Play Store generated $7.7 billion in revenue in Q3 2019, an increase of 24% YoY from $6.2 billion in Q3 2018 – a reason that justifies the android app development cost across genres.
What Makes Android The Best Choice for Mobile App Development for Startups
If you are still skeptical and unsure as to why develop an Android app for your startup then, here are some reasons that might convince you to firm your decision:
1. Greater user base
Today, most users across the world are using android mobiles. And from what we have read so far, this is surely the truth. The majority of users globally use Android-powered devices as compared to its contenders, which gives you a large pool of potential users.
Moreover, not having an android app for business means losing limitless business opportunities. No business can afford such a loss, especially when there’s a cut-throat competition going on in the market. Thus, it is advisable to look for Android application developers to convert your website into an app.
2. Easy availability of resources
Android application development services are primarily based on the base language Java. The programming language, one taught at the graduate level as a compulsory subject, makes it extremely easy for every android app developer for startups (even freshers) to adopt and learn.
For a startup, the fact that they have to spend less time and money on developers’ training makes Android the best choice for their app needs.
3. Open-source platform
Android is an open-source platform. That implies Google doesn’t charge any fee for using this platform. In fact, Google provides Android app development tools and technology for free. Hardware device manufacturers such as Samsung, Xiaomi, etc., all use Android as their default OS. This is because the Android code is open-source and hence free.
This allows Android to capture the majority of the market. This also acts as a great factor in cutting the cost of the entire project. Although the android app development cost does vary from company to company depending upon multiple factors, the more devices you connect with the operating system, the greater would be the overall cost that your android app startup ideas will have to bear.
4. Compatibility with multiple devices
One of the biggest advantages of choosing an android app over iOS is that there’s no restriction on devices to be used for building an android app. You can build an app on Windows desktop, Mac as well as on Linux system. The fact that Android allows you to expand your brand across devices and systems makes it a go-to platform for all the sectors with interoperability needs.
As a matter of fact, Google provides application development tools and technologies for all. Moreover, submitting apps to Play Store is easier and the subscription fee of Google – $25 (one time) is much lower than that of iOS – $99 (per annum).
5. Faster deployment
The duration of deployment for iOS apps stretches up to weeks whereas making an android app live on the Play Store takes only a couple of hours.
This is why most android app development companies recommend choosing android as a platform. The android app development process must be a fast affair because the sooner the app is developed, the quicker the business will bloom.
6. Build a customizable app
Another interesting fact or rather a primary pro of choosing android application development services is that it allows the android app developers to customize the apps as per the business requirement. This means your business app development will get done with the right requirements which might not have been possible with any other platform.
In a nutshell, no matter whether you are a product-based company or a service-based company, having an Android app for business is a must. It will act as a channel to reach maximum customers and hence improve your sales.
7. Incredible graphics support
Another reason for choosing Android mobile app development for a startup is because it offers amazing graphics support by providing incredible features. In fact, this is what makes it a perfect choice for Game app development, and apps that will be more centered around the graphics. The platform also provides support for 2D and 3D graphics.
8. Easy integration
In terms of integration, Android is a great choice indeed. Ask any android app development company and they will tell you how easy it is to integrate third-party APIs with your Android app. The ease, in turn, positively impacts the total cost and time of the app development towards a downward way.
9. Heavy device fragmentation
Though it is true that fragmentation can lead to up to increased development cost and testing time, however, it has its own benefits to offer. The variety of devices that the Android ecosystem is made up of: smartphones, TV, home assistant devices, wearables, etc. inevitably points towards the big market all ripe and ready for you to target with your application. Unlike iOS, your app won’t be limited to just a set of devices.
10. Multiple network distribution
If you look at the advantages of the Android mobile app development for startups, you will find that the apps are not just limited to the Play Store. Meaning, you can publish your app on other app stores as well, namely Samsung Galaxy Store, MI store, and so on.
11. Higher ROI
Since you have such a wide market to target, the return of investment on your android app development for business would be instant and always on a higher end. From the time you publish your app on the store, there is a big pool of potential users you can tap into. All you need to do is devise a robust marketing and promotion strategy and follow best practices to get your app featured on the Play Store – processes that a sound android app development company can help you with.
12. Greater scalability
This is another strong reason why businesses aim for becoming Android based startups. The platform is not limited to just smartphones, but can also be integrated into devices running on other technologies like IoT, AR, and VR. This provides a larger scope of scalability for businesses. It is this versatility that shows why businesses across the globe are looking for skilled android app development companies for startups.
Though it is true that Android and iOS are tough competition for each other, and deciding which to choose can be difficult since they have their own benefits to offer to businesses. However, even if you choose the benefits of android apps for startups over iOS, you can always try cross-platform development to target multiple platforms for expanding your reach.
